He spoke with a depth of feeling of which I had never thought him possessed. Sincerity and truth dignified every look and tone. Yes! there were undying memories, now wakened in all their strength, of the youthful champion of my injured rights, the sympathizing companion of my darkest hours; the friend, who stood by me when other friends were unknown. There was many a responsive chord that thrilled at his voice, and there was another note, a sweet triumphant note never struck before. The new-born consciousness of woman's power, the joy of being beloved, the regal sense of newly acquired dominion swelled in my bosom and flashed from my eye. But the master-chord was silent. I knew, I felt even then, that there was a golden string, down in the very depths of my heart, too deep for his hand to touch.
I felt grieved and glad. Grieved that I could not give a full response to his generous offering,—glad that I had capacities of loving, he, with all his excellences, could never fill. I tried to tell him what I felt, to express friendship, gratitude, and esteem; but he would not hear me,—he would not let me go on.
"No, no; say nothing now," said he impetuously. "I have been premature. You do not know your own heart. You do love me,—you will love me. You must not, you shall not deny me the privilege of hope. I will maintain the vantage ground on which I stand,—first friend, first lover, and even Ernest Linwood cannot drive me from it."
"Ernest Linwood!" I exclaimed, startled and indignant. "You know he can never be any thing to me. You know my immeasurable obligations to his mother. His name shall be sacred from levity."
"It is. He is the last person whom I would lightly name. He has brilliant talents and a splendid position; but woe to the woman who places her happiness in his keeping. He confides in no one,—so the world describes him,—is jealous and suspicious even in friendship;—what would he be in love?"
"I know not. I care not,—only for his mother's and Edith's sake. Again I say, he is nothing to me. Richard, you trouble me very much by your strange way of talking. You have no idea how you have made my head ache. Please speak of common subjects, for I would not meet Mrs. Linwood so troubled, so agitated, for any consideration. See how beautiful the sunlight falls is the lawn! How graceful that white cloud floats down the golden west! As Wilson says:—
'Even in its very motion there is rest.'"
"Yes! the sunlight is very beautiful, and the cloud is very graceful, and you are beautiful and graceful in your dawning coquetry, the more so because you know it not. Well—obedience to-day, reward to-morrow, Gabriella. That was one of my old copies at the academy."
"I remember another, which was a favorite of Mr. Regulus—
'To-morrow never yet
On any human being rose and set.'"